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The Treasury has been forced to find an extra £438m to spend on military pensions after a printing error resulted in a hole in the defence budget.

British servicemen and women will see their pensions paid from an emergency cash pot until MPs agree to boost to this year's budget.

One defence official told the Financial Times the error had occurred because the Treasury had “put the decimal point in the wrong place” in official spending documents.

Treasury “put the decimal point in the wrong place”

The Treasury said the shortfall would not disrupt payments to ex-military personnel and there was no hole in the public's finances because it had been an administrative error.

According to a written ministerial statement published yesterday: “This shortfall in the net cash requirement has arisen due to an inadvertent publishing error by HMT in the Central Government Main Supply Estimates 2016-17.

“Parliamentary approval for additional cash of £438,193,000 will be sought in the Supplementary Estimate for the Armed Forces Pension and Compensation Schemes.

Former British Chancellor of the Exchequer George OsborneCredit:
BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Image

“Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £438,193,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.”

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, told PoliticsHome: “These brave men and women put themselves in harm’s way to defend us and this oversight is frankly disrespectful.

“It’s increasingly clear that this government are more interested in spending millions on new, shiny ships than properly remunerating the people who have actually served our country."

The Ministry of Defence said: “There is no question of payments to veterans or personnel being at risk — our generous compensation and pension schemes, paying over £4bn to veterans each year, will continue to pay out in full and on time.

“A straightforward administrative error at the Treasury resulted in a projected shortfall in funding, and so we’ve acted promptly and appropriately to rectify this to ensure our armed forces receive what they deserve.”